I attended a computer conference in Chicago
in 1995. We stayed at a hotel downtown. We went walking along the lake to
the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. I've never felt safer in any of my
travels. We saw a lot of cops on bicycles and cars. People were walking and
jogging along the lake. Moms with baby strollers were enjoying the sunshine.
It was hard to believe this was a big city in 1995. In contrast, we stayed
at the Biltmore in L.A. There were scary people hanging around right outside
the door. We were warned not to even walk to a restaurant unless we were in
groups of 10. Does Chicago have special police protection downtown? How do
they keep it so clean and welcoming? My trip there was the best travel
experience I've ever had.

Actually, you raise a touchy subject. For starters, although downtown Chicago arguably
has less crime than downtown L.A., it seems clear you're not basing your favorable
impression on the police blotter. Rather, in 1995 you saw
more ordinary people on the streets here (joggers, moms with babies, cops)
and more "scary people" in L.A.  and by scary I'm guessing you mean
homeless. Chances are you'd say the same if you visited both towns now. Los Angeles
mayor Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa has described his city as "the
capital of homelessness in America." The homeless are especially conspicuous in
downtown L.A., where the
Millennium Biltmore Hotel is. Chicago has its share of homeless people,
and more than its share of crime  but neither is especially high profile downtown,
notwithstanding the
occasional incident. That's not because of police sweeps, though.
Rather, it's fair to say Chicago, for better or worse, has moved its problems
somewhere else.

The first thing to realize is that, although crime has dropped in both towns, Chicago as a whole was somewhat more dangerous than L.A. in 1995
and is considerably more dangerous now. Here are the numbers for
1995 and
2008, as
compiled by the FBI:

VIOLENT CRIME 19951

MURDER2

ROBBERY

AGGR. ASSAULT

City

Number

Rate/100K

Number

Rate/100K

Number

Rate/100K

Chicago

824

30

30,086

1,094

39,025

1,419

Los Angeles

849

24

29,134

841

38,945

1,124

VIOLENT CRIME 2008

Chicago

510

18

16,553

589

17,032

602

Los Angeles

384

10

13,422

349

11,798

306

1Rape statistics
not comparable. 2Includes nonnegligent manslaughter. Source:
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States,
Table 8, "Number of Offenses Known to Law Enforcement."

The rates tell the story. Even in 1995 Los
Angeles was safer than Chicago, and today it's a lot safer.

Not so downtown. Direct
comparison between central business districts is difficult, since workers
far outnumber residents and crime rates per x population don't mean
much. One way to get around this problem is to compare crimes per square mile.
Here's what we find:

Let's turn to homeless populations. Here the
difference between the two cities is striking. According to
statistics compiled by the Department of Housing and Urban Development,
Los Angeles had 69,000 homeless people as of 2008, the most of any U.S.
city. Of these, 57,000 were "unsheltered," i.e., on the street. Chicago in
contrast had only 6,000 homeless, of whom 1,600 were on the street. The
Chicago Coalition for the Homeless
(CCH) reports a larger number 
21,000 on any given night, 74,000 over the course of a year as of 2006 
but most of those people are doubled up with friends or relatives, not
living in cardboard boxes and such. Why the big disparity in people on the
street? The obvious explanation is the weather, although you'll get some
debate about that. The point is, homelessness is a lot
more visible in Los Angeles than here.

Mere numbers don't tell the whole story,
though, and it's here we get to the touchy part. In addition to likely
having had a smaller problem to start with, Chicago over the past 40 years
has made a concerted effort to rid its central area of the scruffy
element, including not just the homeless but down-on-their-luck types
generally. Here's a partial list of
what was done:

Skid row demolition. The Loop at
one time was ringed by single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels  what used to be
called flophouses, where a sleeping space could be had for 50 cents a night.
The biggest concentration, with some 2,800 rooms, stood on west Madison
Street. It was
torn down in the early 1970s using urban renewal money and ultimately
replaced by luxury housing. Many other SROs have been razed since.
According to figures compiled by CCH, the number of SRO units
in the city dropped from 53,000 in 1973 to 13,000 in 1996.

Removal of homeless encampments. The
best known of these was on Lower Wacker Drive, where dozens of homeless
could be found sleeping on loading docks and other out-of-the-way spots on
any given night. In the mid-1990s, the city began forcibly removing these
individuals, tossing out their belongings and fencing off the places where
they stayed. This led to an outcry and legal action by homeless advocates;
more on this below.

Not all of this was
accomplished gently.
A class-action suit filed by CCH in the wake of the Lower Wacker sweeps
resulted in a settlement in which the city agreed to give notice prior to
cleaning out encampments and allow the homeless to relocate their
possessions. The city has since embarked on a
plan to end homelessness by 2012. One may entertain some skepticism
about the likelihood of accomplishing this goal; nonetheless, having talked
things over with CCH executive director Ed Shurna and Jim LoBianco, the
city's deputy commissioner for homeless services, I'd say there appears to
be a genuine effort to get people into housing or programs and not simply
to harass them into going somewhere else. Be that as it may, while "scary
people" haven't disappeared from downtown Chicago, you're less likely to see
them than you might have been 20 years ago.

Meanwhile, the city has had great success in
attracting middle-class residents downtown. The subject is too complicated
to explore here, but a few numbers will give the idea. Between 1980 and
2000,
32,000 dwellings were constructed downtown, and the population increased
56 percent. The boom continued for quite a few years after that; some were
projecting a
downtown population of 165,000 by this year, more than double what it
had been a decade earlier. In light of the economic crash that may be
optimistic, but there's no question Chicago's core is bustling.

The result of all this, some argue, is that
Chicago looks a good deal healthier than it actually is. Even today a
downtown visitor doesn't need to travel very far south or west to find
neighborhoods as desolate as anything you'd encounter in Detroit. The public
school system has made some progress but on the whole is still dismal. The
poverty rate remains
stubbornly high. Los Angeles has its problems too, but over the past 60
years has done much better than Chicago and in some ways is in stronger
shape now. Yet
despite improvements, a business traveler staying in downtown L.A. is
likely to think, what a rathole, while visitors to downtown Chicago figure,
hey, my kind of town. No special police protection is required to create
that impression; rather, it's the result of a longstanding policy of pouring
resources into the urban core.

So, Ace, am I claiming what you were seeing
was an illusion? No, not exactly. Chicago has clearly stabilized; other midwestern cities such as
Detroit, Cleveland and Saint Louis haven't. Few would dispute that the
resurgence of downtown was an important part of that. On the other
hand, when you're strolling down Michigan Avenue on a nice day, it's easy to
kid yourself the city's problems have all been solved, and they haven't.

The fact is, at this point most of the
low-hanging fruit has been picked  and I say that fully recognizing the
herculean effort required to get things this far. The north side of the city is thriving,
but it wasn't in bad shape to start with. Much of the south and west sides,
in contrast, needs wholesale reconstruction. For a while the housing bubble
made it appear this could be accomplished quickly, but the boom is over, and
it seems likely we're in for a long stretch of little or no growth. In
short, Ace, it's great you enjoyed your visit to Chicago; we agree
downtown is a lot of fun. But many people here are thinking: what next?